White House Calls Amazon’s Reported Tariff Transparency Plans a ‘Hostile and Political Act’
The White House slammed Amazon Tuesday over its reported plans to share information about the costs President Donald Trump‘s tariffs add to products.
“This is a hostile and political act by Amazon,” Karoline Leavitt, White House press secretary, told reporters Tuesday morning. “Why didn’t Amazon do this when the Biden administration hiked inflation to the highest level in 40 years?”
The White House’s commentary came after Punchbowl News reported Tuesday that Amazon had plans for tariff transparency. Punchbowl noted that the e-commerce behemoth is expected to, in the near future, add information displaying to the consumer how much of an item’s total cost can be attributed to tariffs.
An Amazon spokesman told Sourcing Journal, “The team that runs our ultra low cost Amazon Haul store considered the idea of listing import charges on certain products. This was never approved and is not going to happen.”
Watch on FN
Leavitt said Amazon’s reported plans signal that it “has partnered with a Chinese propaganda arm,” and noted that the company’s plan displays “another reason why Americans should buy American.”
In recent weeks, some Amazon sellers have hiked their prices in response to the added cost of importing goods from Chinese suppliers. Others, Reuters reported Monday, have begun to opt out of participating in Prime Day in an effort to keep margins as high as possible amidst economic uncertainty and tariffs.
Other companies with a high reliance on Chinese suppliers have started to define their consumer-facing strategies on tariffs.
Temu, which previously imported a slew of direct-to-consumer parcels from Chinese sellers duty free under the de minimis provision, has put an “import charges” line item on its checkout for certain products. In the U.S., goods that are not shipped from domestic warehouses incur such a fee at a rate of about 145 percent, in line with Trump’s current tariff rate on Chinese goods.
On its site, Temu notes, “Items imported into the U.S. may be subject to import charges. These charges cover all customs-related processes and costs, including import fees paid to customs authorities on your behalf. The amount listed may not represent the actual amount paid to customs authorities.”
The change comes ahead of the collapse of de minimis on goods inbound from China, effective May 2. Early this month, Trump signed an executive order stating that Customs and Border Protection (CBP) would begin collecting duties on previously exempt packages, stunting a trade provision Temu and competitor Shein used to keep prices low on apparel items and other consumer goods.
While shipments inbound from China now face import fees on Temu, items that are imported from one of Temu’s local warehouses appear to be exempt from such a fee; that’s because the items have already been imported en masse into the U.S. by the seller and will ship domestically to the consumer.
Shein has taken a different route than Temu. Like Temu, the company announced this month it would increase prices effective April 25. But Shein is not outright asking consumers to pay any import or tariff-related fees beyond the price hikes, despite the fact that much of its own merchandise is shipped directly to consumers from warehouses near Chinese factories.
The Singapore-headquartered company greets consumers with the following message when they proceed to checkout:
Neither Temu nor Shein returned Sourcing Journal’s request for comment on their tariff-related strategies.
